Blessed and Favored By God Are Those Who Keep His Testimonies
Psalm 119:2 (Amplified Bible) Blessed and favored by God are those who keep His testimonies, And who [consistently] seek Him and long for Him with all their heart.
The word testimonies here means testimony, reminder, warning. The content of God’s truth recorded in the law.[1] Those who keep the law of the Lord will be blessed and highly favored. Those who live and walk according to the word of God will be blessed and highly favored. Some today act as if obedience is not important to God Almighty. That He has only given us His word as a suggestion, and we can pick and choose what we desire to follow and build our lives on.
The truth is that obedience is very important to the word of God. God desires to bless us greatly in every area of our lives. For when the blessing of the Lord is poured out on the people of God it is a testimony to those who have no relationship with The Living God. Some today have the mindset to follow Christ means we live in a continual place of poverty. It is important to see and understand that we will face hard and difficult things as followers of Jesus, but it doesn’t mean that our lives will be void of the blessing of God.
But the question is what is our motivation for walking in obedience? Is it simply to be blessed by God because if that is the case then we simply serve God for selfish motives. The driving force of why we desire to walk in obedience is our love for Him. When we begin to understand how much He loves us it truly changes how we live. We move from desiring to live for self to living for Him.
The second part of this verse is key: And who [consistently] seek Him and long for Him with all their heart. When we consistently seek Him and long for Him, our hearts and minds will be fixed upon Him. We will hunger for His presence and His word. We will supernaturally be changed and transformed by the power and work of The Holy Spirit. We are called to seek Him with all our heart. May we pray that anything that would hinder or delay the purposes and plans of God in our lives be removed. Many things can become idols and the danger of deception is we can be deceived and not even know it. As we pray and ask God to remove everything in our lives that would hinder, we open the door for God to truly do surgery and begin to cut away those things that are keeping us from walking in our fullness in Him. His love for us is unconditional and extraordinary. He desires the very best for us as His sons and daughters. May we surrender, seek Him with all our hearts, and seek Him continually.
Prayer
Father have your way in my life. Cut away and remove anything that is hindering what you want to do. Help me to seek you continually and with all my heart. Father help me to draw near in the hard and difficult season and moments. Help me in my weakness. May your strength be perfected in my weakness. Thank you that your grace is sufficient. Thank you for how much you love me. In the mighty name of Jesus, Amen!
[1] G. D. Taylor, “Testimony,” ed. Douglas Mangum et al., Lexham Theological Wordbook, Lexham Bible Reference Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).
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